Slashdot Mirror
'No One Wants Your Used Clothes Anymore' (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: For decades, the donation bin has offered consumers in rich countries a guilt-free way to unload their old clothing. In a virtuous and profitable cycle, a global network of traders would collect these garments, grade them, and transport them around the world to be recycled, worn again, or turned into rags and stuffing. Now that cycle is breaking down. Fashion trends are accelerating, new clothes are becoming as cheap as used ones, and poor countries are turning their backs on the secondhand trade. Without significant changes in the way that clothes are made and marketed, this could add up to an environmental disaster in the making. [...] The tide of secondhand clothes keeps growing even as the markets to reuse them are disappearing. From an environmental standpoint, that's a big problem. Already, the textile industry accounts for more greenhouse-gas emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined; as recycling markets break down, its contribution could soar. The good news is that nobody has a bigger incentive to address this problem than the industry itself.
Hold on to your out of date clothing. They will be back in style in 10 years.
Or simply wear them. If your friends judge you buy your clothes, they're not your friends.
I volunteer at a local food pantry that also makes donated clothes available to its clients. I generally only volunteer once a week, but I see a lot of people lining up to get clothing...whether it's for themselves or someone else.
Maybe other countries don't need/want our used clothing as much, but there's still a demand/need in the USA at least.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
No, just stop buying new stuff. Stop throwing away your perfectly good clothing.
Everybody has too much stuff. Don't buy more. Just stop.
(I realize that on this site, many people here are not "fashion conscious" so this may not apply. However, in the real world lots of people just keep buying new stuff and throwing away perfectly good clothing.)
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Even people in Trump's *hole countries people have plenty of clothes. That's not the problem.
The problem is that we dump our trash on their market and destroy any local market for clothing. This prevents them from "lifting themselves up by their bootstraps" (or similar neoliberal articles of faith). Poor countries are finally saying stop sending us your trash. We need to develop our own economies.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Friends have very little in the way of influence on your life. It's the strangers who judge you that are the problem.
Women's clothing in particular seems to be ephemeral... for my wife, even 'high quality' brands seem to last less time than similar quality men's clothing. Even something like a pair of jeans: whereas the men's jeans are made with real denim, the women's are blended with a lot of other materials and wear out faster.
It's true. Women's clothing is (by and large) flimsy, expensive and designed more for display than practicality compared to men's clothing. I'd be filled with happiness to find a dress with actual practical pockets! Amazing! What an idea!
So wouldn't making the recyclers more efficient reduce their costs as well?
And how do you propose to do that? Recycling means you get a mixed bag of everything people gave you and you never know what they were thinking. As an analogy, around here at Christmas time there's a donation box for gifts for the poor and because of the personal touch it encourages more and bigger contributions than paying donations. They wrap it up nice and pretty like it's ready to go from secret Santa to straight under the Christmas tree, on the card you're supposed to write the target age/sex.
Do you know what happens to all those presents? They're unwrapped, unpacked, inspected, reviewed for age/sex appropriateness, repacked and re-wrapped. And not just because some people have a bit strange ideas about what's really fit for a Christmas present or useful for a kid. But because there's always some ass hat with mental problems who'll wrap up a broken PlayStation or sex toy or dog poop and a note that says here's a little shit for a little shit. The system only works because they got volunteers willing to perpetuate a fantasy while shielding the recipients from what would actually happen.
You just can't get away from that individual checking of everything. It's the same thing that's killed much of the repair business, if your toaster is broken go buy a new one. Even if it's just a tiny fix the repair guy has exhausted the budget almost before he can get the lid off while a thousand rolled off the assembly line in China. And if the market doesn't care the manufacturer doesn't care about making manuals, parts and equipment etc. available either. Huge, controlled environments with identical items have economics of scale. Small, uncontrolled environments with mixed items don't.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings